OH HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN

The City of Wildomar will be holding three public hearings in the near future to establish “VOTING BY DISTRICT” as was originally the choice of the community when citizens voted to become a city in 2008. With a simple question they chose “By District”

In splitting the vote they achieved the city council’s goal of “At Large” elections.

Apparently a number of cities in recent weeks have received a letter from a law firm requesting they consider establishing a vote by district format in order to achieve a more equitable representation of its citizens. Either that or explain before a judge why they don’t need to.

The link below opens the letter received by the City of Hemet on December 22, 2015. Only the name will have been changed but is more than likely the same a received by the City of Wildomar

The Wildomar city council decided rather than fight the matter, which could have cost hundreds of thousands, they would establish districts in time for the upcoming elections in November. At that time 2 council members would be up for election.

On has to wonder how long the city council has known about this item, as the City of Hemet received their letter on December 22, 2015 and made the decision to establish districts.(This question has been answered by a Press Release on January 14, 2015. The city of wildomar received its letter on December 21, 2015)

Thanks to the “California Public Records Act” the number of citizens that will receive the above “Press Release” from the city of wildomar is a known number and it is minuscule. Only 225 names are on the list (when one removes duplicate names this list is less than 220).

The question that remains to be decided in upcoming public meetings is will these elections be “from district” whereby the entire city vote for council members from each of the districts(Update: apparently SB 493 mentioned below limits the city council to only changing to a “by district” method of voting explained below without having to go to the voters.)

This is what the city of wildomar is going to do adopt a city ordinance for elections “by district”

The three public hearings are just formality with no real meaning as of yet.

or “by district” only the registered voters in a district vote in the election to choose the council member from that area.
A candidate for the city council must reside in the district in which he or she is running.